doctor's orders

it’s a constricted sensation deep within my chest

I doubt my ability to name it as it settles —

living and breathing and growing

sickening each lung in turn until oxygen feels liquid and I choke. 

I think I've lost count of my bad nights now;

bad nights and bad days merging into overwhelming static.

can there ever be an instance of love which doesn’t end

in a corpse, held alive by fire and petty feuds?

this is illness.

“stupidity exacerbated by the dramatic tendencies of your actions”

this isn’t illness. 

there’s no corpse, no fire and certainly no dead lover;

naivety and sleep deprivation make the perfect nightmare

ten milligrams of Zolpidem - that’ll do the trick!

to fuel your warped ideologies of what it’s like to be rocked to sleep.